Nigeria’s Cricket team, the Yellow Greens, were at their best on Sunday at the Tafawa Belewa Cricket Oval in Lagos, defeating Rwanda by 18-run margin in the first West Africa Trophy final.
The East African cricket team came close to turning the table in the final of the 10-day competition, but Steve Tikolo’s team staged an incredible comeback to emerge champs.
Nigeria batted in the first innings, but the Yellow Greens didn’t look like the team who had beaten Rwanda three times during the tournament as they dropped three wickets in the powerplay.
But as the Nigerian team fought back and pushed themselves past the century mark, Man-of-The-Match Isaac Danladi and newly promoted Junior Yellow Greens captain Ridwan Abdulkareem eventually formed a strong partnership to prevent the visiting team from winning the tournament.
Danladi had 44 runs, and Abdulkareem had 39 runs before being dismissed with the final ball of the first innings.
The Yellow Greens scored 103 runs for the loss of seven wickets, and the supporters couldn’t be more proud—despite losing two more wickets in the 20th over.
Rwanda’s start to the second innings was as good as their first, averaging five runs per over with the first 30 balls, while they only dropped one wicket in the first 10 overs.
Lee Booth’s team was only able to score 63 runs after 16 overs thanks to improved Nigerian bowling, and after six more wickets fell, their 104-run target was far beyond their reach.
Chimelie Udekewe took the seventh wicket for Nigeria, who won all 10 of their games to finish the game undefeated in the tournament at the expense of a much better team like Rwanda, Ghana, Sierra Leone.
A crestfallen Rwanda coach, Booth, couldn’t but give credit to the impressive run of Nigeria at the tournament.
“We gave it another push to give Nigeria a run for their money but some fall of wickets and run overs changed the game.
“Nigeria are clearly the best side in this tournament, anything short of victory would have been harsh on them,”
he said.
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